Marasmius koae

Marasmius koae
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Fungi
Division:	Basidiomycota
Class:	Agaricomycetes
Order:	Agaricales
Family:	Marasmiaceae
Genus:	Marasmius
Species:	M. koae
Binomial name
	Marasmius koae; Desjardin & Hemmes (2011)
	known only from Hawaii

Last updated April 21, 2019

Marasmius koae is a species of agaric fungus in the Marasmiaceae family. Newly described to science in 2011, it is known only from Hawaiian montane wet forests. It produces small stemless fruit bodies that grow on the rotting wood of the flowering tree koa.

An agaric is a type of mushroom fungus fruiting body characterized by the presence of a pileus (cap) that is clearly differentiated from the stipe (stalk), with lamellae (gills) on the underside of the pileus. "Agaric" can also refer to a basidiomycete species characterized by an agaric-type fruiting body. Archaically agaric meant 'tree-fungus' ; however, that changed with the Linnaean interpretation in 1753 when Linnaeus used the generic name Agaricus for gilled mushrooms.

The Marasmiaceae are a family of basidiomycete fungi which have white spores. They mostly have tough stems and the capability of shrivelling up during a dry period and later recovering. The widely consumed edible fungus Lentinula edodes, the shiitake mushroom, is a member of this family. According to a 2008 estimate, the family contains 54 genera and 1590 species.

Hawaii is the 50th and most recent state to have joined the United States, having received statehood on August 21, 1959. Hawaii is the only U.S. state located in Oceania, the only U.S. state located outside North America, and the only one composed entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean.

Taxonomy

The species was first described scientifically in 2011 in Mycologia by Dennis Desjardin and Don Hemmes. The holotype specimen was collected in January 1996, in Kōkeʻe State Park on Kauaʻi island. Desjardin and Hemmes consider the fungus best classified in Rolf Singer's section Neosessiles of the genus Marasmius . The specific epithet koae refers to the name of the tree upon which the fungus grows.^[1]

Mycologia is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes papers on all aspects of the fungi, including lichens. It first appeared as a bimonthly journal in January 1909, published by the New York Botanical Garden under the editorship of William Murrill. It became the official journal of the Mycological Society of America, which still publishes it today. It was formed as a merger of the Journal of Mycology and the Mycological Bulletin. The Mycological Bulletin was known as the Ohio Mycological Bulletin in its first volume.

Holotype single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described

A holotype is a single physical example of an organism, known to have been used when the species was formally described. It is either the single such physical example or one of several such, but explicitly designated as the holotype. Under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), a holotype is one of several kinds of name-bearing types. In the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN) and ICZN the definitions of types are similar in intent but not identical in terminology or underlying concept.

Rolf Singer was a German-born mycologist and one of the most important taxonomists of gilled mushrooms (agarics) in the 20th century.

Description

The fruit bodies of Marasmius koae are rounded and fan-shaped to hemispherical, measuring 0.3–1.0 cm (0.12–0.39 in) in diameter. The cap surface is dull and dry, grooved, and has a texture ranging from smooth to somewhat velvety. Its color is brownish yellow to pale brownish-orange near the center, with the color fading to pale orange-white to buff or tan near the cap margin. The gills are convex, buff, and remotely spaced, with one irregular series of lamellulae (short gills) interspersed between three and six gills. The fruit body lacks a stipe, having a sessile attachment to the substrate. The fruit body has no distinctive taste or odor.^[1]

In fungi, a basidiocarp, basidiome or basidioma is the sporocarp of a basidiomycete, the multicellular structure on which the spore-producing hymenium is borne. Basidiocarps are characteristic of the hymenomycetes; rusts and smuts do not produce such structures. As with other sporocarps, epigeous (above-ground) basidiocarps that are visible to the naked eye are commonly referred to as mushrooms, while hypogeous (underground) basidiocarps are usually called false truffles.

The pileus is the technical name for the cap, or cap-like part, of a basidiocarp or ascocarp that supports a spore-bearing surface, the hymenium. The hymenium (hymenophore) may consist of lamellae, tubes, or teeth, on the underside of the pileus. A pileus is characteristic of agarics, boletes, some polypores, tooth fungi, and some ascomycetes.

Tan is a pale tone of brown. The name is derived from tannum used in the tanning of leather.

The thin-walled spores are somewhat fusoid (spindle-shaped) to elongated ellipsoidal in shape, smooth, hyaline (translucent), and measure 12–14.5 by 4–4.8 μm. The basidia (spore-bearing cells) are club-shaped, four-spored, and clamped, measuring 24–28 by 7–9 μm.^[1]

In biology, a spore is a unit of sexual or asexual reproduction that may be adapted for dispersal and for survival, often for extended periods of time, in unfavourable conditions. Spores form part of the life cycles of many plants, algae, fungi and protozoa. Bacterial spores are not part of a sexual cycle but are resistant structures used for survival under unfavourable conditions. Myxozoan spores release amoebulae into their hosts for parasitic infection, but also reproduce within the hosts through the pairing of two nuclei within the plasmodium, which develops from the amoebula.

A hyaline substance is one with a glassy appearance. The word is derived from Greek: ὑάλινος transparent and Greek: ὕαλος crystal, glass.

The micrometre or micrometer, also commonly known by the previous name micron, is an SI derived unit of length equalling 1×10⁻⁶ metre ; that is, one millionth of a metre.

Habitat and distribution

The species is endemic to Hawaii, where it has been found growing in dense groups on the rotting wood of koa (Acacia koa). Collections have been made only in the Koa/Ohia Montane Wet Forest on Kauaʻi island.^[1]

Endemism is the ecological state of a species being unique to a defined geographic location, such as an island, nation, country or other defined zone, or habitat type; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. The extreme opposite of endemism is cosmopolitan distribution. An alternative term for a species that is endemic is precinctive, which applies to species that are restricted to a defined geographical area.

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References

1 2 3 4 Desjardin DE, Hemmes DE. (2011). "Agaricales of the Hawaiian Islands 9. Five new white-spored species from native montane wet forests". Mycologia. 103 (6): 1441–50. doi:10.3852/11-114. PMID 21700634.

External links

Marasmius koae in Index Fungorum

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[Desjardin2011-1] 1 2 3 4 Desjardin DE, Hemmes DE. (2011). "Agaricales of the Hawaiian Islands 9. Five new white-spored species from native montane wet forests". Mycologia. 103 (6): 1441–50. doi:10.3852/11-114. PMID 21700634.